Scott Horton Interviews Lew Rockwell

Scott Horton, June 30, 2012

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Lew Rockwell, founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, discusses his “War and Inflation“speech at a 2008 Future of Freedom Foundation conference;” how central banking allows governments to fund wars and empire through money printing instead of direct taxation, keeping a lid on internal dissent; why deflation is a normal and desirable condition of productive economies; and why Keynesianism is best summarized as the economics of state power.

MP3 here. (22:08)

Lew Rockwell is the founder and Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, Vice President of the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, California, and publisher of the political Web site LewRockwell.com. He is the author of The Left, The Right and The State and served as Ron Paul’s congressional chief of staff between 1978 and 1982. Check out his podcast show here.

38 Responses to “Lew Rockwell”

  1. Evil — A crime in any fair and just society

    Lew Rockwell
    “Government is evil, it is the only institution in society that clams the right to initiate violence against the innocent.”

    Evil being to enrich yourself upon the misery of another, try to explain that to our voting majority and to a man they will fire back, “What’s wrong with that? For who can eat fruits and vegetables without enriching himself upon the misery of a 5 year old migrant worker? Who can cheer for the winning team at the Super Bowl without enriching himself upon the misery of the looser? Insects eat insects and mammals eat birds, so, good is evil and evil is the very best kind of good.”

    So to be harmless, this thing called righteous, one would need to be a pacifist vegetarian, think competitive sports is of the devil, buy all your produce from family owned farms and give all you can give to the needy. In short, enrich yourself upon the enrichment of others.

  2. And so, is there not some gray area in-between good and evil, something other between absolute good and absolute evil? Yes and it’s called darkness, to wit:

    DARKNESS
    An illusion of good hiding misery.
    A liars pretense of good hiding an intent to be enriched upon our misery.
    A mixture of good and evil such that one cannot tell the good from the misery.

  3. Unpenetrable manichean verbiage? WHY?

    > In short, enrich yourself upon the enrichment of others.

    Well, I recognize capitalism.

  4. True libertarian
    One who would never pay a laboring man only minimum wage, but instead pay a living wage so that his workers have the $35 needed to get a sick kid into the doctor’s office.

  5. Libertarianism
    Liberty for all and all for liberty, by everyone being paid a living wage that allows them to purchase liberty.

  6. Man with wit and humor void of logic, chew on this one:

    Capitalism
    A system of politics, government and deadly force that maximizes pleasure for the maximum number of people. A money dictatorship, where everyone enriches themselves upon the misery of those less wealthy and only a fool goes to court against a party more wealthy.

  7. For the tradeoff in life is temporary physical pleasure vs. permanent mental happiness. A losing battle for most, as the purpose of this life is to reach the ultimate conclusion of wars, and to accomplish such a goal requires that the majority love the plunder and glory gained from war. As General George Patton would say,

    “Americans love war, they love a good fight.”

  8. [...] Lew Rockwell interviewed on “War and Inflation“ Jul 2 General, Pentagon Scott Horton Interviews Lew Rockwell Scott Horton June 30, 2012 Antiwar.com [...]

  9. Hitler was a mercantilst-fascist (like Lincoln) but not a Keynesian. He actually threw the central bankers out of Germany and loathed speculators. One thing that monster did right was fix the German Economy. He must have raged against "international finance capitalism" as he called it at a ratio of 10 to 1 more than he did about Jews in Mein Kampf.

  10. "Capitalism
    A system of politics, government and deadly force that maximizes pleasure for the maximum number of people. A money dictatorship, where everyone enriches themselves upon the misery of those less wealthy and only a fool goes to court against a party more wealthy. "

    This is complete nonsense and stupidity at its finest. What you described is not capitalism but FASCISM. Most people are actually simple minded enough to think it's capitalism though. lol! Sometimes it feels like I'm talking to kindergarteners on this subject. So many are actually that THICK. Incredible.

  11. Capitalism — A state of war

    Wikipedia
    “Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit. Competitive markets, wage labor, capital accumulation…”

    We are all born with a different level of intelligence so that everyone may have the ability to pass their wealth and knowledge down to those of a lower class, what love is all about. For love is a giving action that produces a humble response.

    Whereas, competition is the reverse of love, for it is a taking action that produces pride.

    Capitalism for example, this is a worst-case condition for establishing peace and affection between men. For the greater your capital, the greater your knowledge and the faster you are able to rationalize problems and take corrective action — the greater is your ability to hoard wealth and create a state of war.

    So we can promote our anti-war agenda or we can promote capitalism, but we can’t do both, as they are a contradiction in terms and diametrically opposed to each other.

  12. LR has a good spiel but i’m tired by it and it’s BS. Why would bankers (creditors) want inflation? It devalues the money they get back from debtors in the future. I fact they hate inflation. They have done a good job of controlling it since the oil shocks of the 70′s. They also controll the concensus about it too. Inflation hawks dominate our government and pundit class.

  13. It shouldn't have to be pointed out, but there really is a categorical difference between football and war.

    Evolution has programmed us with an instinct to invest some portion of our identity in the collective. When our social structures never went beyond the level of tribe this served some survival function. But at the level of civilization, this instinct unfortunately can facilitate monstrous evil.

    The 'capitalist' may exploit the suffering of a migrant worker by offering them wages in exchange for labor, but the government thug 'exploits' them by stealing their land and savings. Some people refuse to see government for what it is because they can only think in terms of the collective. Despite all logic and evidence, they can only think of government as 'us.'

    In his work "The German Ideology," Marx referred to 'communism' as a state of society in which the wants of the individual have become indistinguishable from the wants of the collective. This should be easily recognizable as the dangerous delusions of a religious fanatic, all too common throughout history. Marx's accomplishment–if you can call it that–was to secularize it; to grant it faux scientific legitimacy. The consequence was to make the twentieth century the bloodiest in human history.

  14. Sam Lowry
    ”there really is a categorical difference between football and war.”

    The goal in pro football is to establish what team has collective intelligence the highest, collective force the most brutal and having received the financial rewards and glory of victory, to be worshiped by those who supported your cause.

    So, the only difference between football and war is the degree of brutality, with only war carrying deadly force to its ultimate conclusion you see .

    Sam Lowry
    ”Evolution… an instinct… in the collective… can facilitate monstrous evil.”

    If this secular religion called evolution is true, that we evolved from the animals best able to kill and eat other animals, then there is no such thing as evil and good is war as it establishes the survival of the fittest.

  15. “capitalist… exploit the… migrant worker… but the government thug 'exploits' them by stealing their land and savings.”

    But worldwide all migrant workers are impoverished, since the beginning of civilization totally void of “land and savings.” So, the goal of government is not to take property from those who have no property, but to protect to protect you from the terrorism generated by your plundering a migrant worker’s time his most priceless property, so you can hoard the maximum property.

    Sam Lowry
    “Communism… a state of society in which the wants of the individual have become indistinguishable from the wants of the collective… delusions of a religious fanatic.”

    The lower half of Russia has always been the uneducated laboring-class, which means that not a single one ever held a position in any communist party For all governments that allow voting, be they capitalist of communist, they are ruled by the 51% most wealthy.

  16. "So, the only difference between football and war is the degree of brutality, with only war carrying deadly force to its ultimate conclusion you see"

    This is simply not true. Your are really not smart. If you cant tell the difference between voluntary interactions (football) and involuntary aggression (war) then please stop commenting about politics. The main difference isn't the violence, although that is certainly a difference in the level of violence, the difference is whether the actions of the participants are voluntary or agressive

  17. Wisdom — Born of experience not intelligence

    Jusitn
    “Your… not smart… can’t tell the difference between voluntary interactions (football) and involuntary aggression (war)”

    Less than 1% of our troops have anywhere near the intensely aggressive personality of a highly combative pro football player.

    Since the draft was abolished, we have had an all volunteer military.

    I’m a passive pacifist now, but not so in the Vietnam war, as evidence by my three year enlistment, Expert Rifle badge, graduate of Non Commissioned Officer Academy, First Place award in Battalion wide competition and having aggressively climbed six pay grades to achieve the rank of Staff Sgt in near record time.

  18. "Less than 1% of our troops have anywhere near the intensely aggressive personality of a highly combative pro football player."

    < 1% eh? I don't know how you arrived at that figure, but I think that after being trained/indoctrinated/brainwashed, troops DO become aggressive. Did you watch the Collateral Murder video?

    And am I creating misery for a migrant by buying food they produced? No! They are getting paid and choose to work in that job. If I didn't buy the food they wouldn't be getting paid. Wouldn't that be worse for the poor suffering migrant that I have supposedly created?

    ps. Scott is leaving antiwar.com? Will the radio shows continue? I sure hope so. All the best Scott, you do great work. :)

  19. "Since the draft was abolished, we have had an all volunteer military."

    The whole point of this interview with Lew Rockwell was to point out that this "all volunteer military" wasn't at all financed voluntarily. It isn't even financed through direct taxation. If it was, people wouldn't put up with it. Instead, it is financed via a massive form of fraud in the form of central banking and fiat currency.

    A tiny group of political and financial elite have asserted for themselves the exclusive privilege of creating money out of nothing. Thanks to our K-thru-12 government indoctrination centers, along with a well-rewarded army of court intellectuals, people are dumbed down into thinking that these elite do what they do for our benefit and not their own.

    Economic prosperity is the product of voluntary trade, savings, and investment; in short, capitalism. There is a categorical difference between getting rich by finding a better way to provide people with the goods and services they want, and getting rich by forcing people to pay for predator drones with which to murder innocent Pakistani children by remote control. The latter is not capitalism. The latter is government. It is the mission of the plutocracy to obfuscate the nature of their parasitic privilege.

    Government is a gang of thieves writ large. Government can even be defined as the parasitic exploitation of the instinct to interpret political authority as the voice of tribal consensus.

  20. If the majority was moral

    Sam Lowry
    “The whole point of this interview… to point out that… military… is financed via a massive form of fraud in the form of central banking and fiat currency.”

    Yes, and now that Step (1) of problem solving has been accomplished, to explain the bloody effects of the problem, the whole point of our posting comments is to:

    Step (2) — Discover the root cause of the problem.

    Step (3) — Agree on the solution to the problem.

    For the more wealth a man has, the greater is his conviction that he deserves wealth, and the greater his desire to go for war so he can plunder wealth.

    So, the moral solution would be to not allow anyone to own more than $1 million and to not allow the 25% most wealthy to have anything to do with politics. That is, if the majority was moral.

  21. …only when they are sure of winning

  22. FICTION
    Rex in Australia
    “After being trained, indoctrinated and brainwashed, troops DO become aggressive.”

    FACT
    Aggressive people feel they deserve more so they take all they can take. Whereas, passive people like myself feel we deserve less so we give all we can give.

    For what a man feel’s he deserves, this is his goal in life to achieve, his high watermark and it controls every aspect of his mind, character and personality.

  23. Stop this ideological blathering – Scott's leaving!
    Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

  24. More libertarian nonsense — when will you moral adolescents grow up?

  25. Read some history, sonny. He did none of those things; and Hjalmar Schacht (you'll find his name when you start reading) was quite close to Keynsian policies.

  26. Free help — The very best kind of help

    Over in HIGHLIGHTS we are told that the reason Scott Horton is leaving us is because AntiWar.com cannot afford his services. But if this is true it begs the question: Why not let volunteer workers run this place for free?

    For the software in this place is a neurotic mess, what with a new format and an old format switching back and forth, what with comments not being posted for hours or not ever getting posted.

    For the moderation in this place, it is not blocking those who want to destroy this place.

    For the guest speakers are not interviewed in a way that gets to the root cause of problems, the only way possible to reach a consensus on the solution to problems.

  27. So, exactly what is moral about forced charity? Does it not make ingrates out of the poor, kill the desire to give by those with an ability to give and totally destroy the moral fabric of society?

  28. Wealth = deadly force

    Bankers are the most deadly men on earth, they being the most wealth and able to purchase the most deadly force.

    For though all the rich nobility of High Society own hundreds of billions, only bankers control trillions upon trillions.

  29. If you lived in a country with a functioning social welfare system — anywhere in the EU, Australia, NZ, etc. — you would learn that that is not how it works. It is not forced charity but enlightened self-interest: everyone contributes to helping everyone, an idea which sits well with Christianity, not that I'm a Christian.

    In particular, you would find a society where people are not bankrupted or worse by the gruesome immorality of a health-care system operated for profit (the US medical system is the most expensive in the world, with among the worst outcomes, including a life expectancy lower than Cuba's — see http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp….

    Libertarianism is nothing but a poorly constructed defence of selfishness which, taken to its furthest conclusion, would lead to Hobbes' state of nature.

  30. LIGHT
    Linguist — “Enlightened self-interest: everyone contributes to helping everyone, an idea which sits well with Christianity, not that I’m a Christian.”

    MORE LIGHT
    True you are, as Christian love is a giving action that produces a grateful response, as compassion and pity should motivate people to feel charitable and give in a way that produces a heartwarming grateful response. And the way it was in the early Christian church, with no rich man allowed to clamed he was a Christian until he first gave all his wealth to the poor.

    Problem is, modern Christianity is the exact reverse. For rich men fund churches just so that they can hand pick war-hawk pastors that preach a Zionist theology.

    Truth is, 25% of American children suffer malnutrition notwithstanding Empire USA having plundered a fourth of all the wealth on planet earth.

  31. Comes now the perfect solution, everyone in the upper half of society be charitable enough to pay the uneducated lower half a living wage. For the more you browbeat and harass people to give, surely the less they are going to give, especially when they see that public charity only inflates pride.

  32. The problems you cite are not caused by a free-market, but by a fascist one.

    "It is not force, but enlightened self-interest"? Taxation is not voluntary. Try not paying and see.

  33. [...] Source [...]

  34. Profit — Is it private or public property?

    The educated upper half of society wants nothing to do with the uneducated and impoverished lower half because their most ingrate. Likewise, the lower half wants nothing to go with educated people because their most greedy.

    For the educated class designs all the work, the laboring-class does all the work, and they just can’t seem to agree on who owns all the capital gained from work.

  35. Libertarian
    Everyone in America who objects to the 51% most wealthy and greedy being the voting majority.

  36. "For the moderation in this place, it is not blocking those who want to destroy this place. "

    Can you please tell US here Who you think is trying to destroy AW.com.. AND show US some example comments…….. johnellis02…..

    It seems to me… That these days, the 51% most wealthy will include quite a few of the disenfranchised

    Letting volunteers run the place is probably just as bad as having an all paid staff…. I worry when I see Angela Keaton and Tom (the self admitted Zionist) Knap… deleting comments they don't like….

    And what is with AK and her feud with Sibel Edmonds….. AK seems to have completely extinguished SE's voice here…… How many others have been driven out by the deletion of their comments which are in no way scurrilous but merely an attack on some of the sacred cows which AW.com and some of the staff milk for intellectual sustenance….

    To both John Ellises: There is NO solution to the rich taking advantage of the poor…. As we have seen, any adjustment is circumvented using charm (William Buckley??) lobbying…. (AIPAC) … The tweaking of (theft) elections ALA Bush vs Gore…… Trojan horse candidates like Obama ….and those in the direct employ of the rich and lately , the deep spell AND employ of foreign patrons (Neocons?) E.G. Joe Liberman…… ALL the wars in the last ten years can be attributed to two players….. Big oil is one….

  37. Seems like the software has been set to send immoderate comments that the staff at AW.com have posted in the past to the moderation dock when they are reposted……. to hide them from you and us…

  38. [...] with Lew Rockwell July 5, 2012 / ok / No comments Scott Horton Interviews Lew Rockwell on Anti-war Radio – This is from June 30, [...]

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